AI and smart cities: Towards a new urban paradigm

From November 5 to 7, Barcelona will become the epicenter of smart cities with the celebration of the Smart City Expo World Congress, the world’s largest event in this field. This year, the congress will feature over 850 cities, more than 25,000 attendees, 600 speakers, and 1,100 exhibitors—surpassing all expectations from previous editions! 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will undoubtedly be present. Generative AI is revolutionizing our world, with investments nearing the staggering sum of 10 trillion dollars, a monumental leap compared to previous investments in technologies like cloud computing, which represent around 850 billion dollars globally. The spectacular rise of companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI, along with the vast capital they are mobilizing, is making a significant difference. 

Innovation implementation is not only a technological issue but also a social and economic phenomenon

In practice, AI’s impact on our daily tasks is still modest, especially when compared to our expectations. However, it’s essential to remember that innovation adoption is not solely a technological matter but also a social and economic phenomenon. It depends on factors such as applicability to each sector and the competitive intensity within a specific context. In this sense, adoption always spreads at varying speeds, and AI is no exception. 

Despite this, it’s surprising to see that generative AI still has limited impact, not only on projects but even on the discourse surrounding cities. Let’s now explore some areas in which AI will radically transform our cities. 

Mobility

One of the most significant changes will occur in mobility. Autonomous cars, taxis, and buses will mark a before-and-after in how we move around cities. 

To begin with, cost reduction is fundamental. If transportation has until now cost between $1 and $0.70 per mile in constant terms, autonomous electric vehicles aim to reduce that cost to approximately $0.20 per mile. This cost reduction is crucial as it opens the door to universal mobility policies at increasingly affordable prices. 

Imagine incorporating solar or wind energy, whose cost becomes practically negligible once installations are amortized. With high-performance vehicles, free from breakdowns and with decreasing costs, we would have the perfect blend for low-cost, and therefore subsidizable, mobility. 

A vision emerges of on-demand, low-cost mobility, with individual or shared vehicles available 24/7

The second element that could change the mobility landscape is autonomous on-demand mobility. We already have Google’s Waymo operating in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, with over 150,000 trips per week. This is a fully operational and expanding business, not just a pilot. Moreover, Baidu’s Apollo operates in Wuhan with over 500 vehicles at a lower cost than local taxis, and like Waymo, it is fully autonomous. There are also smaller pilots, like Amazon’s Zoox and others, running in the United States and China. 

The announcement of Tesla’s Cybercab, a vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals that will enable the creation of on-demand Cybercab businesses, adds even more players to this radical transformation of our concept of mobility. 

What is the future we can envision? On-demand, low-cost mobility, with individual or shared vehicles available 24/7, 365 days a year. The implications are enormous, not only for mobility in current cities but also for the design of cities of the future. 

Such mobility would allow for a significant reduction in the number of cars in urban areas, freeing up space for green zones, facilities, and housing. Additionally, it would make areas far from the city perfectly habitable and connected, improving access at low cost at any time. In this way, the city would become smaller, reducing time spent commuting and enhancing connectivity. 

Social changes would also be significant. Imagine sending a Cybercab to pick up your kids or people with reduced mobility, enabling total mobility for everyone. We are, without a doubt, at a crucial moment in human history, where mobility is on the verge of radical transformation. Cities, like organizations, are structured based on available technology. Just as horse-drawn carriages shaped the Victorian city and internal combustion cars shaped the modern city, autonomous electric cars will define the city of the future. 

Augmented reality

But mobility won’t be the only area affected. Augmented reality glasses are advancing rapidly, becoming a more tangible reality. Meta’s recent announcement of glasses the size of Ray-Bans, with all the functionalities of the best augmented reality offerings, is palpable proof of this technology’s progress. 

Imagine an environment where cities are labeled, but where we can also enrich our real-world interactions through tools like automatic translation and interactions with realistic avatars in virtual or mixed environments. This would undoubtedly reduce the number of physical signs, like posters and advertisements, currently saturating our cities, creating a richer relational environment that blends the real with the virtual. 

Public administration

Interaction between citizens and public administration has largely migrated to the digital realm, and today, we can hardly conceive of it otherwise. In this context, the Internet has been a paradigm-shifting agent, allowing for greater universality and democratization than we could have imagined before. 

Language models promise highly efficient administration at minimal cost

We are now on the verge of an even more monumental change. Interaction will be facilitated by intelligent agents using natural language. The promise here is to eliminate bureaucracy, enabling these agents to perform tasks on our behalf. This shift, from mouse clicks to natural language, from complex forms to intuitive interactions, not only translates into a high level of personalization—adapting to each individual's language, culture, and needs—but could also reduce information management costs to nearly negligible levels. 

Could administration be highly efficient at minimal cost? This is the promise offered by language models. 

The future of cities

As we can see, rarely in history have cities faced a scenario filled with so many possibilities. These opportunities can materialize in various ways, from public to private, and may be in the hands of a few or serve everyone. 

How they materialize will depend on the governance of cities, although not exclusively. Technology is not neutral; it evolves from the values and principles of the societies that create it. If we do not take part in creating this technology, we can only adopt what others have developed. If we want to define its direction, we must roll up our sleeves and participate actively in its creation.